My ICEE Project

 

Remember this project?

Well, I had decided back in the beginning of summer that I would start working on my Visible Horse model kit again in October.

Ironically, October and November is ICEE, a customizing challenge that preps for NaMoPaiMo in February.

I completely forgot about ICEE!

Sooo.....what am I doing? Fixing and reworking the skeleton to paint in February - a two year NaMoPaiMo project! Thankfully, it's a two month long challenge - it will be finished this time!!!

Weekend Photo Shoots

Saturday was Bike The Bear. It is a family event put on by Boy Scouts, where kids and adults condition themselves to ride their bikes around the entire perimeter of Bear Lake. My little (big) brother has been doing this bike race for the past several years. He and my other brother are the leaders of Troop 1, here in Cache County. They ended up going with the troop to the scout camp who was hosting the event the day before and staying overnight. The rest of my family and I plus my grandparents piled into our 12 passenger van (we're all tall people, so we need a vehicle that accommodates that!), drive to Bear Lake to catch my brother in action and see him at the finish line. We also brought Jasper (our border collie) with us.

One thing that is a guarantee, is that it would always be cold, cloudy, windy, and rainy/snowy on Bike the Bear day.

Quite blurry, but it still shows my brother well enough to know that he really likes bright colors. He is also quite the speed demon on that bike (not to mention that he has road tires on, which literally have not tread so that you could ride better on paved roads).

Oh, yeah, we had almost had a close counter with a bull moose....that is, the cyclist who was working his way up the hill (who we had passed and then created a barrier between him and the moose). Thankfully, the moose decided change his direction back towards the lake. We actually had seen three moose (this guy, and then a bull with a doe) that day.

Do you see that dark line out there? That's a drop-off (now I have that scene from Finding Nemo running through my head!) where it leads to the deepest part of the lake. Last I heard, no one has found the bottom; so the local folklore is that there is a tunnel connecting Bear Lake with Loch Ness that Nessie can travel from Loch Ness to become the Bear Lake Monster. The crazy thing is there's a fault line that runs through the middle (width wise) and can cause minor earthquakes (first one I felt was at Bear Lake!)

Before going back home, we had burgers for lunch on one of the beaches that allows dogs. We had some sun, but it was still pretty cold due to the low winds bouncing off of the mountains. We slept for most of the time - everyone really needed a break! I had brought a whole slew of horses to photograph, but the wind was a bit too much. Also, the color/light composition of the background wasn't all that great (the foreground was bright and bleached from the sun, and the background was very dark with the water being a weird teal color).

One the way home through Logan Canyon, I made sure I snapped some pictures of the fall colors that are already here!

On Sunday, I decided to walk up to a nearby field I only recently discovered, to take those much needed photos for the MEPSA Vintage Special.

It was still pretty windy, but not as bad as yesterday. No ponies falling over from wind.

I knew that none of this would fit in the basket to my three-wheeler bike - thankfully we had a wagon that could!

I was able to get quite a few good pictures...most of which are portraits - which are fine, I like portraits! But, there are a LOT of portraits...

I had gotten some of these type of scene photos...by holding the model up and then cropping out my hand later.

Daisy Mae is so cute! She looks like she's tossing her head in this photo (she also looks like she's smiling!)

This is my third take on getting a decent portrait of Silver. I hope it works this time - all the others have been too dark or blurry.

My goal for this year is blending that sharp edge with bushes/grass props.

I think I would still prefer a photo of him at the beach due to his coloring, but this would have to do for now.

I did encounter some people while I was doing the photo shoot. One was a guy with his dog (who kept stopping and waiting my me for her owner to catch up). The other was a whole family, in which the mom was greatly intrigued by what I was doing. I took that opportunity to tell her a little bit about the model horse hobby and community. The nice thing about both people was that they recognized it as art - which is exactly what it is!

Celtic Warrior's Additional Sale Photos

Well, Celtic Warrior is up for SALE! It certainly have been a journey creating this little stinker and I hope he finds the most perfect home that compliments his personality.

Ocean Mist is Now for SALE!

 And now we have Ocean Mist's additional sale photos!

Enjoy!

"Congratulations to Liz McCarthy for purchasing Ocean Mist!"

Firestorm is for SALE!

 Firestorm is finally for sale.

Multiple Dippings

 When I would read on countless of blogs on how live showers would pack their bags and ponies to travel the country hitting all the model horse shows as they go - I couldn't see that being a possible for me. One thing for sure is that I don't drive, so I would either find a ride or drag my family along....to drive me to those places (this is why I hadn't bugged anyone about going to Breyerfest). Other reasons are time, money, energy....

But it would be cool....

To jump from one show to another...

Funny thing is....

With Photo Showing....

That's exactly what I am doing!

Jumping from one show to another.

But it's different.

No, not the fact that I could sit on my bed with my model catalog binders sprawled everywhere, punching in entries.

It's the fact that you can have ONE photo

ENTERED in more than ONE SHOW at a time!

My show string? My whole herd - except for the really old, beat-up, yellowed ones. Some shows have limitations per class, some don't.

Some are free and some have a fee.

Most are on Facebook, but there are some that use snail mail and SmugMug

How many shows, you say?

Let's see, this month there's:

MEPSA (snail mail)

Stockhorse Stampede (FB)

USOMHS (Online Model Horse Show - FB)

Mabel's Online Model Horse Show (FB)

Breyer Stone Ranch Model Horse Photo Shows (FB)

Silver Star Model Horse Photo Show (FB)

Yeah, six might be a little overkill. There were some that came up for this month that I decided to pass on. USOMHS is a paid show, but also has a free class with the limit of 2 entries - I decided for this month, I'll pay, and then maybe next month do the free class. I do want to enter in Ann Field's photo show in November, but I really would like to have a better doll by that time...problem is, I need the right clay for sculpting Ball Joint Dolls (BJD) = going to the store. So, entering that show depends on me mapping out my first BJD. And you think I have enough projects to work on....yeah.

Haven't been in the mood for sculpting lately. Been working on photo showing primarily. Sale pieces ads should be the priority - haven't gotten any bites on the two I put out there. Then there's all the other projects on my mind! Oh, well.

Color Poll

 

Something I like to do is re-arrange my herd every so often (and since I have been out of college, it has been more like every 1-2 months vs. 3-6 months). The last order idea was categorizing everybody to be align with MEPSA's Breed Class List...which started I think at the beginning of August. Obviously, I got bored and wanted to change it to their Color Class List.

Then yesterday morning I had the bright idea to make a Color Poll to see what color is the most collected in my herd. I had about 3 or 4 retakes on how I made the list, but this is what it came out to (horses with patterns of white double dip in their base color, pattern, and combo pattern if present):

• Chestnut/Sorrel: 41
• Bay: 35
• Fantasy: 31
• Black: 28
• Appaloosa: 26
• Cream: 25
• Grey: 24
• Tobiano: 23
• Framed Overo: 14
• Roan: 12
• Multiple Dilutes: 9
• Dun: 7
• Other Dilute: 7
• Pinto Combo: 6
• Sabino: 4
• Decorator: 3
• White Mutation: 1 (Photo is incorrect - accidentally placed a Fantasy there).
• Donkey: 1

A lot of the numbers are surprising for me. When I first started collecting, my absolute favorite were horses that looked like Spirit*!

Then in High School, I was introduced to color genetics through D. Philip Sponenberg's second edition, "Equine Color Genetics." So of course the colors I collected expanded to more unique ones.

Strangely enough, I don't consider that I have very many Black horses, but yet I do. I have found that only certain molds look excellent in Black (like Breyer's Bluegrass Bandit and Chex to Cash).

But above all....

......by being a redhead - I surprisingly collect mainly redheaded horses.